Greetings everybody! Welcome to the first installment of “Backstage Brass”! This is a new forum with which I hope to share some of what happens in the lives of my colleagues and me in the Canadian Brass. This forum will aim at being a good mix of stories from the road and thoughts on the work part of Canadian Brass that happens behind the scenes…the work that happens “Backstage”. OK, let’s get started…

Issue 1 – What does it take?

I’m just going to dive right in here. As you know, Canadian Brass is a world famous ensemble. Though today it really doesn’t take much work to become world famous because of YouTube and reality TV, Canadian Brass’ 37 year success most definitely took TONS of it!

In interviews, I’ve heard the founding members attribute their first few breaks to their tour to China in 1977 and their appearance in the same year on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. The early breaks they got can be seen in countless ways. The most important thing in my opinion is how people think others got their big break.

One choice of perspective is seeing those ‘breaks’ as dumb luck, and simply being in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately, this approach puts less responsibility on us for our lack of getting our own breaks. We just weren’t lucky, or the timing wasn’t right for us. Failure happened to and around us, and success just wasn’t in the cards for us.

I believe, rather, that ‘breaks’ happen from being in so many right places that eventually the right time happens! For every break we get, there are hundreds of wrong times or wrong places. Opportunity is more often a result of an incredible amount of good work and choices that have us in tons of places, and a few of them work out.

(An added thought: Bad breaks also happen from being in the wrong place often enough for the wrong time to happen…)

In interviews, Chuck and Gene talk about the annual 300+ school shows the quintet did in the early years. They used the kids’ honesty during performances as their laboratory to figure out what worked, and evolve their presentations. That is an incredible amount of commitment and work. The years I’ve had so far with the group have been a lot of work too, but I imagine this is still nothing like the work done during the early years of Canadian Brass. I think their beginnings were much like what you, the readers trying to get yourself or your group their first ‘break’, are experiencing now.

Today we benefit from Canadian Brass’ (and other fine brass musicians’) incredible trailblazing efforts for brass music. The ground is more fertile for brass performances today, so remember…things could be worse. Thirty-seven years ago, a brass player’s chamber music repertoire choices and performance opportunities were much less vast and numerous.

So those are some random thoughts on what it takes to get one’s first break or two. The story of Canadian Brass’ continued success, on the other hand, is longer than, well, their success! I’m enjoying my fifth year with the group, and that’s only 5/37 of the time put into their 80+ recordings, 80+ commissioned works, 200+ publications, and thousands of performances!

The other goal for this “Backstage Brass” column is to tell stories from the road. Here are some pictures and happenings from our most recent concert tours. Not much has been going on lately, so this shouldn’t take long.

We were in Mexico for a few concerts in September. We flew in, had a meal, and went straight into a rehearsal.

Here were are doing some “Carmen” refreshing… We then took a walk, ate again (one of the grrrreat things about life on the road!!) and then rehearsed again.

One problem about life on the road as a brass player is finding somewhere to rehearse. We have to think about our hotel room neighbors. Most instruments have “practice mutes” that muffle a large portion of the decibel level out of the sound while allowing enough feedback to do effective practicing. You can see the mute that is in Gene’s bell in the picture below. Chuck’s practice mute is a bit more improvised…

There are practice mutes available for tubas, but the size of them makes it travel prohibitive for sure!

The beautiful hall in Mexico City, the Palacio de Bellas Artes.

Chuck, Manon, and Joe under a very cool poster!

The hall has a 22 ton backdrop, seen behind us. It is made of thousands of pieces of Tiffany glass! We are in our pre-concert set up. We usually arrive to the hall around 5:30pm to set up, do a sound check, eat, and get ready for our concert.

Within the group, we each have our ways of contributing to the business side of Canadian Brass. When we get to the hall, one of Joe’s duties is to talk with the backstage people and tell them our needs. He discusses how to get the best lighting service with what lighting equipment each hall has. He also informs the hall’s technical people about any other needs we have…where the microphone goes, when to turn it on, etc.

The good thing is because we don’t have electric guitars and all that crap, we’re an extremely low maintenance group for a hall to host! Not a single tractor-trailer of equipment to unload and load each night! Whew!!

Ok, we might have a hat or some bull horns to carry, but we can easily handle that load ourselves…no roadies needed!

Another fantastic thing about life with Canadian Brass is meeting fellow musicians from al over the world. A bunch of horn players from Mexico came backstage, and took us to a restaurant after the concert as well. There are always many tuba, trombone, and trumpet players backstage too, but I didn’t get pictures of them this time. We love seeing you all at our concerts, and backstage too! Keep the visits coming!!

I do a ton of writing while on planes. Yup, I’m on one now, flying to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada! Yay…a homecoming for me! I was just asked a few questions by the person sitting next to me. The first question was, “Heyyy…how’d you do that!” That one’s referring to the magic trick I just did.

The other question was, “Don’t you hate all the travel?” I replied, “Nope. I can’t hate it. If I chose to hate it, I’d be in a self-imposed living hell. There’s nothing I can do about having to travel when I’m in my line of work.” What serves me well is surrendering to the fact that I can only be in one place at any time. Now I spend my time affecting what I can. The current travel experience of having to wait in line, check in for the flight, wait in line while going through security, wait to get on our flight, sit in the cramped leg-room-less seats, wait in line to take off…

…wait to get off the plane, wait to find out if our luggage is lost, and wait to file a claim, and wait and hope to get our luggage and/or instrument? Love it!! All these things are things that I can’t control, or even influence…without driving 35 hours to Edmonton!

Yeah, all those things could drive us crazy, but we really do have a choice. Frustration is a choice, and I believe getting frustrated is a choice to be bothered by something instead of learning about whatever we’re choosing to be frustrated with. Our choice lies in doing something about the situation, or moving on. That choice is usually made by the facts of the situation. If we don’t choose to attach an emotion to it, the facts (or ‘content’) of a situation can usually serve to reveal whether we can do something or not. Most things about travel, for example, are out of my control. So I try to accept that, stay calm, and spend my time well…by, sayyyyy…writing Backstage Brass!

I’m writing a full-length article about redefining a few words, one of which is “frustration”. I’ll go more into that with that article… Stay tuned!

So just one or two more things happened recently with Canadian Brass. Here are a few more pictures.

“Backstage Brass” in Mexico…leaning on the set for “Aida”

Gene with CB photographer Robyn McCallum and CB operations assistant Janina Laughton.

Our rehearsal with the Elmer Iseler Singers in Toronto

Our meal after our rehearsal! We heard Manon finished both bags of chips! (well, ok…truthfully, we helped with the eating…and then bought more bags!)

A backstage moment of everyone preparing for the concert.

“Just a closer walk” down the aisle…

Another typical day hanging out together…

Hmmmm…ok, so there might have been a few things going on with us lately. I might have lied… Heh…

Ok, what did we do then? Oh yeah…we went to Rochester, NY.

We performed and recorded with the Eastman Wind Ensemble. Here’s our first day’s rehearsal together.

Chuck, of course, earned his doctorate from Eastman…by the time he turned twelve, we think.

He was very happy to return to the Eastman School of Music for this project. The rest of us were blown away by the quality of this ensemble! The “World’s Best Wind Ensemble” is not inaccurate, from what we experienced!

All the musicians were incredible, and maestro Mark Davis Scatterday was a fantastic fearless leader!

We did a live one-hour radio broadcast as well, with interviews and performances. We opened with a double quintet piece with Eastman’s Emerald Brass Quintet. Both groups then spoke and performed.

One of the best parts of this type of event is the collaboration with the younger musicians.

We get to talk to them, and share things we have and are experiencing…

…and we get to hear what their thoughts and experiences are too.

All the above pics were taken within 2 minutes of each other. Everyone just paired off, and chatted away the pre-broadcast time. Above you will see Shachar Israel chatting with awesome Eastman hornist Allen Fogle. Shachar came in to play some of the pieces with us on this concert and recording. He’s a great guy, and a pretty good trombone player. No wait…he’s a great trombone player and a pretty good guy. Yeah, that’s it. (I told you I’d get even with you, Shachar…wooohohaaaa!)

The recording went great, as you will hear in the near future. These are some of the behind the scenes stars of the show! The biggest star seen above is Mr. Dixon Van Winkle. He is a Grammy Award winning producer, and a former Eastman classmate of Chuck. He’s the one wearing the hat. He takes the sound from the microphones and creates what you hear come out of your CD player!

Mary Beth Daellenbach has been our “Tonmeister” for many recordings. She lets us know what takes are really good, and what moments we miiiiiight want to play one more time. She makes sure we get it all on tape, while making sure we’re moving forward during the recording sessions, while assuring us to feel good about what’s happening, while inspiring us keep our energy at a high level, while advising us to watch the right details. In her spare time, she writes down everything that happens throughout the sessions so an edit plan exists at the end of it all. Otherwise, she talks to us in the breaks about what could be better. J …and we think we’re tired at the end of these sessions!

To MB’s left is Michael Sweeny. He is a Hal Leonard star arranger, and he arranged a three-movement version of Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass” for the Eastman Wind Ensemble and us. It is incredible! No more words about that, as you’ll have to hear it for yourself with the CD is released!

On MB’s right is a great guy named David Jacobs. He’s a doctoral student who works very closely with Mark Scatterday. Beside Dixon, at the console, is John Truebger. He is an engineer with the Eastman recording team, and played a large part in the technical running of the taping.

We went to Bartlesville, Oklahoma next.

We played with the Bartlesville Symphony to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the orchestra, and the 30th anniversary of their maestro, Lauren Green. It was wonderful to return to see old (young looking) friends, and play with the orchestra there again.

Well, I think that about catches us up! Hmmm…ok, one more thing. We recorded a wonderful Christmas CD titled Christmas Tradition.

It has us performing 23 perennial favorites with organist extraordinaire Eric Robertson. That’s Eric working with Chuck pictured above.

This CD is available now! You can either get it at our December concert near you or order it exclusively through Arkivmusic.com

Here’s a sample, “Good King Wenceslas”:

Thanks for stopping by, and reading about some of our adventures! More to come, we guarantee it!

Until then,
Keep breathing…